Yun-Fei Ji

Yun-Fei Ji, Nine Women, mineral pigments and ink on mulberry paper, 24.5" x 54.5", 2006.

Yun-Fei Ji (; born 1963) is a Chinese-American painter who lives in New York City and Philadelphia. His art synthesizes old and new representational modes, subverting the classical idealism of centuries-old Chinese scroll and landscape painting traditions to tell contemporary stories of survival amid ecological and social disruption. He employs metaphor, symbolic allusion and devices such as caricature and the grotesque to create tumultuous, Kafka-esque worlds that writers suggest address two cultural revolutions: the first, Communist one and its spiritual repercussions, and a broader capitalist one driven by industrialization and its effects, both in China and the U.S.

Institutions that Ji has exhibited in included the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), S.M.A.K. (Ghent), the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum and New Museum, among others. He been awarded the American Academy in Rome Prize, and his work belongs to the art collections of MoMA, British Museum, Whitney Museum

He is represnted by James Cohan Gallery in New York City.

Early life and career Ji was born in 1963 in Beijing, China, the son of an army doctor. He grew up amid the decade-long Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), during which his mother was sent to a labor camp for re-education. and Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and solo shows at Pierogi, Pratt Manhattan Gallery and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. the Wellin Museum of Art (2016), and Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (2021), as well as the James Cohan Gallery (New York, 2006–present) and Zeno X Gallery (Antwerp, 2003–present). He also exhibited in the Lyon Biennale (2011), Biennale of Sydney (2012), Prospect New Orleans (2014), Shanghai Biennale (2014), and the surveys "Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art," (Smart Museum of Art, 2008), "Medals of Dishonour" (British Museum, 2009),

Work and reception Ji draws upon personal, historical, cultural and political sources for inspiration: his memories of Maoist rule, classical and folk art, literature and deep research into instances of human displacement and environmental destruction in the name of modernization. His paintings often have the weathered, crinkled and creased look of premature age, making a sense of the passage of time physically tangible. Compositionally, he employs dissonant perspectives and shifts in scale that undercut the consistency of landscapes, narrative flow, or simple interpretations. Artforum'''s Michael Wilson wrote that this work (e.g., Wedding Ballad, 2002) "conjured a world in turmoil that oscillates between the safety of centuries-old tradition and [present-day] mortal terror." The "Empty City" paintings (Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2004) centered on the Chinese Three Gorges Dam project, specifically, its displacement of an estimated 1,500,000 people (largely minorities) and submergence of thousands of villages and significant archaeological sites, forever altering both landscape and culture. His fractured, panoramic scrolls (e.g., Empty City—calling the dead, 2003) presented multiple perspectives and self-contained vignettes that moved between past, present and future, refusing any easy message. Both offered a sense of perpetual transition and history repeating itself through an amalgam of settings and signifiers: the devastation of New Orleans, migrants piled with their meager, worldly goods, details of the Nan Shui Bei Diao megaproject, and scenes of Columbus Park in Manhattan. The imagery of Village Wen’s Progress functioned both literally and symbolically, with collapsing scaffolding, ominous ever-present ghosts and thematic movement from mundane drudgery to hallucinatory chaos that related physical dislocation to mental disintegration. The British Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Hammer Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Norton Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smart Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art, US Department of State, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Whitney Museum, among others.

He has received fellowships from the American Academy in Rome (Rome Prize, 2005), and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts (1999), Joan Mitchell Foundation (1998) and Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1997). Ji has been awarded artist residencies by Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, Headlands Center for the Arts, Art Omi, Millay Colony for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and MacDowell, among others.

Publications Adler, Tracy L., Robert C. Morgan & Stephen J. Goldberg, Yun-Fei Ji: The Intimate Universe, Prestel Publishing, New York, 2016, Cox, Jessica Lin, Christopher Rawson, & Leo Xu, Yun-Fei Ji: Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts, James Cohan Gallery, 2010 Chiu, Melissa, Tan Lin, Gregory Volk, Paul Ha & Yun-Fei Ji, Yun-Fei Ji: The Empty City, Shannon Fitzgerald Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2005 Tsai, Paula, Yun-Fei Ji: Water Work, Ucca Books, Beijing, 2013